Brian, three brothers inherited property. One brother wants to sell his share to one brother. Does the third brother have to give permission?

The short answer is no, no permission is necessary. This question illustrates a couple of different principles.

The first principle is the nature of property passing by way of will or intestacy (no will).  Whether heirs take title via a will (if by will they are rightly called devisees) or by intestacy (rightly called heirs) they take and hold title as tenants in common without right of survivorship.

The second principle is the nature of a tenancy in common.  Tenants in common hold an undivided fractional interest in the whole (that is, the property is not actually split into smaller chunks, which is possible – consider 60 acres split into three 20 acre pieces).

 So, in our example each brother took an undivided one-third interest.  That one-third interest may be bought and sold just like any other interest, and one does not need the permission of any other owners to do so.  Thus the brother can sell his interest to another brother without the permission of the excluded brother.  In fact, these interests may be sold to anyone – and that is one reason why there is a cottage industry in fractional share TIC’s (i.e. Tenancies In Common) for 1031 exchange purposes.